Boris Johnson’s War Cabinet is designed with election victory in mind – Paris Gourtsoyannis

The first 24 hours of Boris Johnson’s premiership show he’s preparing for a short, bloody fight – and then an election, says Paris Gourtsoyannis.
The appointment of Dominic Cummings, evil genius behind the £350m a week claim, shows Johnson is preparing for a fight (Picture: PA)The appointment of Dominic Cummings, evil genius behind the £350m a week claim, shows Johnson is preparing for a fight (Picture: PA)
The appointment of Dominic Cummings, evil genius behind the £350m a week claim, shows Johnson is preparing for a fight (Picture: PA)

A few days before the Tory leadership contest result, Boris Johnson told a newspaper that his favourite movie scene was “the multiple retribution killings at the end of The Godfather”. In the 24 hours since then, he’s confirmed that’s the spirit he’s going to govern in, from the bloodbath of the formation of his Cabinet, to his finger-jabbing first performance at the despatch box.

This is not a Government for the long haul. This is a War Cabinet for the 100-day battle over Brexit, and the election that inevitably comes with it.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

There were two lessons from the first days of Theresa May’s administration. One was to avoid giving your senior advisers too tight a grip on the Downing Street operation; Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill throttled the life out of her government and turned May’s MPs against her. The other was not to create too many enemies on day one by ending too many ministerial careers in one go.

The appointment of Dominic Cummings, evil genius behind the £350m a week claim, shows Johnson is preparing for a fight (Picture: PA)The appointment of Dominic Cummings, evil genius behind the £350m a week claim, shows Johnson is preparing for a fight (Picture: PA)
The appointment of Dominic Cummings, evil genius behind the £350m a week claim, shows Johnson is preparing for a fight (Picture: PA)
Read More
Ian Blackford brands Boris Johnson 'last Prime Minister of UK' in fiery Commons ...

Johnson went big on ignoring both lessons. Dominic Cummings, the ‘evil genius’ installed as one of his top policy aides, is reviled by most of the people who don’t fear him. He was the behind-the-scenes mastermind of the Leave campaign, who came up with the ‘take back control’ slogan and the false ‘£350m a week’ for the NHS promise on the side of the red bus. Prior to that, as an adviser to Michael Gove at the Department for Education, he was the scourge of civil servants and fought a war against the political establishment for the crime of failing to keep up with his free-wheeling intellect. Since the referendum campaign, he has waged another bitter feud with those seeking to hold the Leave campaign to account.

But he has also alienated many Leave-supporting Conservative MPs, particularly the ERG, who he believes have undermined the delivery of Brexit. Cummings’ appointment makes clear Johnson has no hopes for a quiet time in Downing Street. He is the wartime consigliere and Johnson’s Cabinet, filled with Brexit true-believers, is ready to go to the mattresses in a snap election – or even a second EU referendum, which Cummings once predicted would be required to secure Brexit.

As for not making enemies on your first day, Johnson produced about as many as he could: there were only half a dozen more Cabinet ministers for him to sack or force out. Given the mandate he has from the party membership, and the threat of deselection that hangs over outspoken Remainers in the Conservative Party, not all will join Phil ‘Guevara’ Hammond’s guerilla rebellion against a no-deal Brexit. But several will, with the Government’s majority potentially about to be cut to just one.

May’s critics accused her of governing for one side of the EU referendum divide, seeking a hard Brexit outside the single market and customs union, and ending the free movement of people. But she could only do it half-heartedly, given she supported Remain. Her unionism did, in the end, trump her claim that no deal was better than a bad deal.

Johnson has little holding him back – certainly not a belief in the Union as profound as his predecessor. So while he has rejected the lessons of May’s downfall, he has fully embraced the ones from the 2014 Scottish independence referendum: in the aftermath of a divisive, binary referendum, stoke the us-vs-them dynamic, embrace emotion over scrutiny in public debate, blame the press and the establishment for the failure to deliver the promised golden vision, and make yours the optimistic message while your opponents deal in the language of risk and warning.

An election after the UK leaves the EU will see the Brexit Party vote fall away, while a vote before Brexit, triggered by a no-confidence motion or a failure to secure the concessions that Johnson insists he can get in Brussels, would see the Lib Dems and SNP tear through Labour’s support. In a first-past-the-post system, Johnson’s Tories would clean up – just like the SNP after the independence referendum.

Whatever the outcome, what’s certain the battle will be bloody and short.